Quote of the Day

From TPM.

...There's been a lot of talk in this campaign about Barack Obama's problem with working class white voters or rural voters. But these claims are both inaccurate because they are incomplete. You can look at states like Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states and see the different numbers and they are all explained by one basic fact. Obama's problem isn't with white working class voters or rural voters. It's Appalachia. That explains why Obama had a difficult time in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why he's getting crushed in West Virginia and Kentucky.

If it were just a matter of rural voters or the white working class, the pattern would show up in other regions. But by and large it does not.

In so many words, Pennsylvania and Ohio have big chunks of Appalachia within their borders. But those regions are heavily offset by non-Appalachian sections that are cultural and demographically distinct. West Virginia is 100% Appalachian. If you look at southeastern Ohio or the middle chunk of Pennsylvania, Obama did about the same as he's doing tonight in West Virginia...

Quote of the Day

Barack Obama from a weekend interview.

..So I welcome the Muslim world’s accurate perception that I am interested in opening up dialogue and interested in moving away from the unilateral policies of George Bush, but nobody should mistake that for a softer stance when it comes to terrorism or when it comes to protecting Israel’s security or making sure that the alliance is strong and firm. You will not see, under my presidency, any slackening in commitment to Israel’s security...

Everybody Say It All Together Now: Follow The Money

From the IHT.

The once-formidable fund-raising machine of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton has begun to sputter at the worst possible moment for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, Clinton advisers and donors said Thursday, with spending curtailed on political events and advertising as Clinton seeks to compete in the last six nominating contests.

Clinton's diminished political momentum, following Tuesday's loss in the North Carolina primary and her narrow victory in Indiana, appears to have had a dampening effect on her fund-raising, aides said, increasing the likelihood that Clinton will lend her campaign more of her own money beyond the $11 million she has already provided.

Clinton advisers said Clinton was committed to spending more of her own cash on the campaign if necessary, although they spoke optimistically about a rise in fund-raising if she prevails in Tuesday's primary in West Virginia.

The campaign is clearly running low on cash, although advisers would not say how much money — or how little — Clinton currently has. The campaign had started April with over $10 million in unpaid debts, and Clinton was vastly outspent by Senator Barack Obama in North Carolina and Indiana.

Some advisers to Clinton said that the debt had grown significantly, especially because of the high cost of competing and advertising in the Pennsylvania primary last month, but they could not give a precise figure...

Who Loves You, Baby?

Tom Friedman Needs to Stop Making Sense

From the NY Times.

...The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.”

Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.

But here’s what’s scary: our problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite.

Are you sitting down?

Few Americans know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies.

These credits are critical because they ensure that if oil prices slip back down again — which often happens — investments in wind and solar would still be profitable. That’s how you launch a new energy technology and help it achieve scale, so it can compete without subsidies.

The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for by taking away tax credits from the oil industry. President Bush said he would veto that. Neither side would back down, and Mr. Bush — showing not one iota of leadership — refused to get all the adults together in a room and work out a compromise. Stalemate. Meanwhile, Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program; Japan 12 years. Ours, at best, run two years.

“It’s a disaster,” says Michael Polsky, founder of Invenergy, one of the biggest wind-power developers in America. “Wind is a very capital-intensive industry, and financial institutions are not ready to take ‘Congressional risk.’ They say if you don’t get the [production tax credit] we will not lend you the money to buy more turbines and build projects.”

It is also alarming, says Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, that the U.S. has reached a point “where the priorities of Congress could become so distorted by politics” that it would turn its back on the next great global industry — clean power — “but that’s exactly what is happening.” If the wind and solar credits expire, said Resch, the impact in just 2009 would be more than 100,000 jobs either lost or not created in these industries, and $20 billion worth of investments that won’t be made.

While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America’s premier solar company, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany — 540 high-paying engineering jobs — because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not.

In 1997, said Resch, America was the leader in solar energy technology, with 40 percent of global solar production. “Last year, we were less than 8 percent, and even most of that was manufacturing for overseas markets.”

The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.

Quote of the Day

Is this a compliment? From CNN.

Easley, a popular two term governor who is unable to run for re-election because of term limits, also praised Clinton for her persistence.

"I've been accused of being persistent, and down right aggravating…but this lady right here makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy," Easley said.

Another Edition of Follow the Money

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama's supporters are giving him more than just record amounts of cash. They also are providing personal information that may make his donor list the most powerful tool in U.S. politics.

Even if the Democratic presidential candidate doesn't succeed in his White House bid, this data will make Obama a power broker in the party for years to come. For the interest groups or Democratic candidates he chooses to sell it to, it would provide a gold mine of information and access to potential donors.

Almost 2 million people have entered personal information on Obama pages on social-networking Web sites such as Facebook, MySpace and his campaign's mybarackobama.com, offering home addresses, phone numbers, their views on specific issues and the names of friends. The data have allowed Obama, 46, to raise more than $200 million, fill sports arenas with supporters across the nation and motivate millions more with custom-tailored messages.

``It's gigantic,'' said Laura Quinn, chief executive officer of Catalist, a company that maintains a database of 280 million Americans. The list is as ``transformational'' as the advent of political advertising, she said.

Volunteering Information

The Illinois senator's biggest innovation is in persuading people to enter personal information directly on his campaign's Web site, according to Bill McIntyre, executive vice president of Grassroots Enterprise Inc., a Washington-based Internet marketing firm that advises campaigns.

McIntyre, a Republican and former chief national spokesman for the National Rifle Association, said the data entered by 800,000 names on mybarakobama.com may be worth as much as $200 million.

While in the past, campaigns have cross-referenced lists of registered voters against other records such as credit-card purchases or magazine subscriptions to find potential supporters, Obama's information is more accurate and precise because it relies on data that donors provide themselves.

``When people give information online, they are going to be more truthful and more credible because they are in the privacy of their own environment,'' said McIntyre.

Republican Effort

It's the kind of detailed information that Republican operatives such as Karl Rove, who directed President George W. Bush's campaigns, excelled at gathering through expensive microtargeting techniques that combine data from several sources. The Democrats responded with Catalist, a similar list- building effort organized by top Clinton campaign adviser Harold Ickes that sells its data to ``progressive'' causes and candidates, according to its Web site.

Obama's success stems from a decision early in his campaign to embrace the concept of social networking, allowing him to leap ahead of his Democratic rival, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, or the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona. For example, Obama now has 790,000 Facebook ``friends,'' compared with 150,000 for Clinton, 60, and 117,000 for McCain, 71.

Mybarackobama.com, the first social network specifically devoted to a political campaign, is modeled on Facebook. Chris Hughes, a 24-year-old Facebook co-founder, has been a fulltime Obama campaign worker for more than a year and helped develop the candidate's site.

Part of Campaign

When supporters join mybarackobama.com, they become part of the campaign, gaining access to phone bank lists, local events and the ability to contact like-minded people or recruit new ones.

Mybarackobama.com is also a sophisticated data network that allows the campaign to home in on detailed information such as whether a supporter is more concerned about civil liberties, foreign policy, education or energy policy.

People who provide their information on line may not realize that the data they are posting at mybarackobama.com may have a long afterlife and find its way to other campaigns in future election cycles.

According to the Obama campaign's online privacy statement, it reserves the right to ``make personal information available to organizations with similar political viewpoints and objectives, in furtherance of our own political objectives.''

Fair-Market Value

Federal election laws require campaigns to charge for the use of their data. The campaign must either sell the information or record the transaction as an in-kind contribution at fair- market value.

Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment on the value or possible future uses of the data.

Even as Obama's interactive databases prove to be efficient ways to energize volunteers, their ability to raise large amounts of money may outlast the current campaign, said Tad Devine, an independent media consultant.

``That's really what we are talking about here,'' said Devine, a former strategist for Democrat John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid. ``We are talking about a fundraising network that will far surpass the dominance that the Republicans held in the '80s and even in to the '90s.''

Obama's list of 1.4 million donors may be an especially strong fundraising tool in the future, Devine said.

``This is something where if this guy sends out a letter saying send some money to someone, suddenly a House candidate can have a half million dollars in a day,'' said Devine. ``That may be what the House candidate was hoping to raise in a quarter.''

This ability to produce results ensures Obama will play a prominent role in the future.

``Win or lose, it's his list,'' McIntyre sai

d.

Morty's Republican In-laws Will Not Like This - Sorry

The Democratic Party will not be suicidal. From TPM.

Howard Dean: Party Elders All Agree Race Shouldn't Go To Convention
By Greg Sargent - April 28, 2008, 9:07AM

Howard Dean, on ABC this morning, makes it absolutely clear that he and all the other "party elders" want the race to end well in advance of the convention:

"The rules say [superdelegates] can make up their mind in August if they want to, but there are a lot of Democrats myself included, Senator Reid, Speaker Pelosi, and many many others who understand that we want the voters to have their say, that's over on June 3rd, and then the unpledged delegates really have got to make up their mind.

"None of the so-called party elders that I've talked to thought that this should go to the convention and I agree with that."

This is likely to provoke more anger from Hillary's major supporters, who have expressed fury at Dean for statements like this, which they characterize as meddling in the Dem primary.

Either way, Dean appears to be suggesting that it's likely that party elders will step in after the voting and try to engineer a movement of super-dels to the perceived winner.

Hillary, clearly, is hoping to be able to argue that by some metric or other she won the popular vote, in order to obscure perceptions of who won, hence turning the contest into a battle for super-del support. But if Obama wins the pledged del count, as expected, it doesn't appear likely that party elders will stand idly by while that happens, if these comments from Dean are any indication.

John McCain Uses Slave Labor?

I'm already not a fan, but this is pretty pretty disgusting. From The Birmingham News.

Thursday, April 24, 2008
KIM BRYAN
News staff writer

Republican presidential candidate John McCain got a deal when his campaign rented gathering space from the city of Homewood for a private fundraiser earlier this week.

His campaign was given a discount of about 80 percent off the standard booking rate for Rosewood Hall. In September, Jefferson County Democrats rented the same facility and were charged the full rate.

The McCain campaign was charged $250 to use two rooms in the hall, which normally would book for $1,200 on a weeknight. The campaign also was given free labor from Homewood City Jail inmates to set up tables and chairs for the event, avoiding a $100 set-up fee, but did pay a standard $50 cleaning fee.

Quote of the Day

From Matt Yglesias.

...Ultimately, the only thing we really know about either candidate's base of support is that Obama's is slightly larger, and that he's demonstrated more ability to expand it over time through campaigning. Either way, though, I think Democrats can be fairly confident. What voters "know" about the three candidates right now is that John McCain is a war hero maverick, Hillary Clinton is a castrating harpy, and Barack Obama is a radical black Muslim and given that . . . the race is about tied. As Ross Douthat points out that's not good news for McCain.

No One is Leading on This Issue, But Clinton Joins the McCain Stupidity Parade

Update to an earlier post.

Clinton Joins McCain on Gas-Tax Holiday; Obama Opposes

Nick Timiraos reports from Pittsburgh on the presidential race.

Policy differences between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been far and few, but a new one emerged on Monday over a proposed gas tax holiday. Obama says he’s against while Clinton says she’s in favor, putting her on the same side as John McCain, who proposed such a holiday last week.

Gas prices could hit $4 this summer, raising the ire of voters and putting pressure on presidential candidates to promise immediate action.

Speaking on Larry King Live on Monday night, Clinton outlined a series of steps to address the issue at the beginning of the show, reflecting the growing importance of pocketbook concerns among voters. “I would also consider a gas tax holiday, if we could make up the lost revenues from the Highway Trust Fund,” she said, without specifying how to make up those lost revenues.

Earlier Monday at a community college in the Philadelphia suburbs, Obama rejected a tax holiday as bad economic policy. “I’ve said I think John McCain’s proposal for a three-month tax holiday is a bad idea,” Obama said, warning consumers that any price cut would be short lived before costs spike back.

“We’re talking about 5 percent of your total cost of gas that you suspend for three months, which might save you a few hundred bucks that then will spike right up,” Obama said. “Now keep in mind that it will save you that if Exxon Mobil doesn’t decide, ‘We’ll just tack on another 5 percent on the current cost.’”

Obama also said that pausing the tax would deprive the federal highway fund of its revenue source for needed infrastructure repairs. But he said he opposed an increase in the gas tax, despite a need for Americans to reduce their dependence on oil.

McCain, the likely Republican nominee, called for Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor day last week. Economists have warned that the benefits of such a holiday are short lived.

McCain may feel more pressure to take steps because voters could hold the Bush administration accountable if gas prices spiral out of control. At a press conference earlier this year, President Bush expressed surprise over how high gas prices had risen.

Quote of the Day

Tell Morty how you really feel, Juan Cole.

McCain's whole discourse on Iraq is just a typical rightwing Washington fantasy made up in order to get you to spend $15 billion a month on his friends in the military industrial complex and to get you to allow him to gut the US constitution and the Bill of Rights.
...
McCain can't come out and say we need to crush the Armed Iraqi Revolution, because that would be an admission that the US has been fighting Iraqis for 5 years and still hasn't defeated them. So he and the Republican strategists and the retired generals and their Pentagon handlers make up this "al-Qaeda" business, as though people in Baquba would be gunning for Americans if Americans hadn't invaded their country and turned it upside down.

It is the US military occupation of Iraq that is producing "al-Qaeda" wannabes, and if it is ended the Iraqis and their neighbors will polish those off tout de suite. Keep the military occupation going, as McCain desires, and you are running an incubator for terrorism against the US and its allies that has already produced hits on Madrid and the London Underground.

In other words, elect McCain, my friends, and you are summoning the awful genie of another 9/11. I said it. I mean it. I'm not taking it back. That man's announced policies could well produce a blowback that will lead to the end of democracy in the United States. It is a momentous decision.

Submitted Without Comment...

Yep

Glad I did not tune in. From the Washington Post.

By Tom Shales
Thursday, April 17, 2008; Page C01

When Barack Obama met Hillary Clinton for another televised Democratic candidates' debate last night, it was more than a step forward in the 2008 presidential election. It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.
For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.

The fact is, cable networks CNN and MSNBC both did better jobs with earlier candidate debates. Also, neither of those cable networks, if memory serves, rushed to a commercial break just five minutes into the proceedings, after giving each candidate a tiny, token moment to make an opening statement. Cable news is indeed taking over from network news, and merely by being competent.

Gibson sat there peering down at the candidates over glasses perched on the end of his nose, looking prosecutorial and at times portraying himself as a spokesman for the working class. Blunderingly he addressed an early question, about whether each would be willing to serve as the other's running mate, "to both of you," which is simple ineptitude or bad manners. It was his job to indicate which candidate should answer first. When, understandably, both waited politely for the other to talk, Gibson said snidely, "Don't all speak at once."

For that matter, the running-mate question that Gibson made such a big deal over was decidedly not a big deal -- especially since Wolf Blitzer asked it during a previous debate televised and produced by CNN.

The boyish Stephanopoulos, who has done wonders with the network's Sunday morning hour, "This Week" (as, indeed, has Gibson with the nightly "World News"), looked like an overly ambitious intern helping out at a subcommittee hearing, digging through notes for something smart-alecky and slimy. He came up with such tired tripe as a charge that Obama once associated with a nutty bomb-throwing anarchist. That was "40 years ago, when I was 8 years old," Obama said with exasperation.

Obama was right on the money when he complained about the campaign being bogged down in media-driven inanities and obsessiveness over any misstatement a candidate might make along the way, whether in a speech or while being eavesdropped upon by the opposition. The tactic has been to "take one statement and beat it to death," he said. ...At the end, Gibson pompously thanked the candidates -- or was he really patting himself on the back? -- for "what I think has been a fascinating debate." He's entitled to his opinion, but the most fascinating aspect was waiting to see how low he and Stephanopoulos would go, and then being appalled at the answer.

McCain - "suspend gas tax," Moishe says fuc*ing retarded

surefire way to keep Americans addicted to cheap oil and ensure no one changes their ways. nice pandering.

From CNN:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In his most wide-ranging speech on the economy, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain on Tuesday laid out an agenda that would change the tax code, freeze discretionary spending and temporarily suspend federal gas taxes.

Will Kudlow Recognize the Market's Decision?

More from Morty and Moishe's continuing series Follow the Money. From TPM.

Money Managers Betting On Obama
By Eric Kleefeld - April 14, 2008, 8:39AM

Barack Obama has enjoyed a groundswell of donations from hedge-fund managers, just edging out Hillary Clinton and way ahead of John McCain -- a sign that the markets are, right or wrong, betting on an Obama win in November.

The numbers from up until Feb. 29: Obama has received $2,196,734 from money managers, Clinton $2,046,550, and McCain only $772,375.

Hard to Say Obama Doesn't Walk It Like He Talks It.

Might end up costing him votes, of course. From The LA Times.

By Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 11, 2008
Fourteen months into a campaign that has the feel of a movement, Sen. Barack Obama has collided with the gritty political traditions of Philadelphia, where ward bosses love their candidates, but also expect them to pay up.

The dispute centers on the dispensing of "street money," a long-standing Philadelphia ritual in which candidates deliver cash to the city's Democratic operatives in return for getting out the vote.Flush with payments from well-funded campaigns, the ward leaders and Democratic Party bosses typically spread out the cash in the days before the election, handing $10, $20 and $50 bills to the foot soldiers and loyalists who make up the party's workforce.

It is all legal -- but Obama's people are telling the local bosses he won't pay.

That sets up a culture clash, pitting a candidate who promises to transform American politics against the realities of a local political system important to his presidential hopes. Pennsylvania holds its primary April 22.

Obama's posture confounds neighborhood political leaders sympathetic to his cause. They caution that if the senator from Illinois withholds money that gubernatorial, mayoral and presidential candidates have willingly paid out for decades, there could be defections to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. And the Clinton campaign, in contrast, will oblige in forking over the money, these ward leaders predict.

"We've heard directly from the Obama organizer who organizes our ward, and he told us it's an entirely volunteer organization and that I should not expect to see anything from the Obama campaign other than ads on TV and the support that volunteers are giving us," said Greg Paulmier, a ward leader in the northwest part of the city.

Neither the Clinton nor the Obama campaign would say publicly whether it would comply with Philadelphia's street money customs. But an Obama aide said Thursday that it had never been the campaign's practice to make such payments. Rather, the campaign's focus is to recruit new people drawn to Obama's message, the aide said.

The field operation "hasn't been about tapping long-standing political machinery," the aide said...

Like I've Been Saying, Forget About the Polls, Follow the Money

From the Wall Street Journal.

By BRODY MULLINS
April 2, 2008; Page A1

WASHINGTON -- John McCain faces a problem as he tries to close a deep fund-raising deficit against the two Democratic candidates for president: Both have been cleaning his clock among business interests that give mainly to Republicans.

Of seven major industries that have been the most reliable Republican resources, Sen. McCain has beaten Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama in only one, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization. Even that one, transportation, is a close call. Among the seven combined, the expected Republican nominee raised $13.1 million through February, compared with $22.5 million for Sen. Obama and $27.1 million for Sen. Clinton.
The Republican standard-bearer's attempt to claw back financial support from the GOP's business base could be a pivotal factor in determining the outcome of the presidential race. Employees of financial-services, insurance and real-estate companies so far have donated to Sen. Obama over Sen. McCain by almost two-to-one -- and favored Sen. Clinton by even more. Health-care and pharmaceutical firms have given three times as much to each of the two Democrats as to Sen. McCain. Defense firms put Sen. McCain ahead of Sen. Obama, but behind Sen. Clinton. Energy, construction and agribusiness firms have given more to both Democrats...

Could Obama Possibly End It in PA?

Here's hoping. Anecdotally, I'm seeing a ton of Obama commercials and none from Clinton, as Obama puts that money to work. From TPM.

Rasmussen: Hillary Ahead By Just Five Points In Pennsylvania Primary
By Eric Kleefeld - April 1, 2008, 9:02AM

A new Rasmussen poll of Pennsylvania gives Hillary Clinton only a five-point lead in the Democratic primary. Here are the numbers, compared to last week:

Clinton 47% (-2)
Obama 42% (+3)

The poll also shows that 47% of respondents have followed Hillary's Bosnia-Misstatement story very closely, and another 27% have followed it somewhat closely.

Very Good Asessment of Obama's Leadership Qualities

There's lots more details, so read the whole piece. From PMARCA.com

...Early in 2007, a friend of mine who is active in both high-tech and politics called me up and said, let's go see this first-term Senator, Barack Obama, who's ramping up to run for President.

And so we did -- my friend, my wife Laura, and me -- and we were able to meet privately with Senator Obama for an hour and a half.
...
We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you haven't had meaningful experience as an executive -- as a manager and leader of people?

He said, watch how I run my campaign -- you'll see my leadership skills in action.

At the time, I wasn't sure what to make of his answer -- political campaigns are often very messy and chaotic, with a lot of turnover and flux; what conclusions could we possibly draw from one of those?

Well, as any political expert will tell you, it turns out that the Obama campaign has been one of the best organized and executed presidential campaigns in memory. Even Obama's opponents concede that his campaign has been disciplined, methodical, and effective across the full spectrum of activities required to win -- and with a minimum of the negative campaigning and attack ads that normally characterize a race like this, and with almost no staff turnover. By almost any measure, the Obama campaign has simply out-executed both the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

This speaks well to the Senator's ability to run a campaign, but speaks even more to his ability to recruit and manage a top-notch group of campaign professionals and volunteers -- another key leadership characteristic. When you compare this to the awe-inspiring discord, infighting, and staff turnover within both the Clinton and McCain campaigns up to this point -- well, let's just say it's a very interesting data point.

We then asked, well, what about foreign policy -- should we be concerned that you just don't have much experience there?

He said, directly, two things.

First, he said, I'm on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where I serve with a number of Senators who are widely regarded as leading experts on foreign policy -- and I can tell you that I know as much about foreign policy at this point as most of them.

Being a fan of blunt answers, I liked that one.

But then he made what I think is the really good point.

He said -- and I'm going to paraphrase a little here: think about who I am -- my father was Kenyan; I have close relatives in a small rural village in Kenya to this day; and I spent several years of my childhood living in Jakarta, Indonesia. Think about what it's going to mean in many parts of the world -- parts of the world that we really care about -- when I show up as the President of the United States. I'll be fundamentally changing the world's perception of what the United States is all about.

He's got my vote.